I don't think it is possible to join a hood without having someone there to share their Relto book. The Meeting Place hood was full last night of people hoping to join it, but the sole member was not online.

The Guild of Greeters has a great (if old) manual for Uru. On the web site look for FAQ in the left-side menu. Looking through the list that comes up, near the end, is a KI Guide. It has a section about inviting people to an age.

One can invite people to any age except their Relto, unless I'm missing it. So, it appears one has to be in Cavern to join-invite people into a new Bevin.

While one can invite people to a Bevin, that does not get them joined. I tried it, so unless my system is glitch'n, it does not work. One has to use a book leading to the Bevin they want to join.

So, joining is only possible when the pertinent people are in Cavern. So, until the ability to get in Cavern is predominant... this is difficult.

I'm using Tweets when I'm in Cavern. There is a GoC Tweet (It is IC style).

I need some help getting the Nalates AV into the GoC Bevin. If you can help, may be use a through-away av, I would appreciate it. Contact me in Cavern.Nal = 83 543Nalates = 111 541GoC = 219 651 (spaces are only for easy reading)

Over the weekend I was able to chat to Paislee and Nalates about where we might go next.

My feeling is that the next chapter should focus on the Cavern and MOUL ages, maybe encouraging explorers new to Uru to join in with developing some storyline (if they would like to). These might be coming from other online worlds, encouraged by Uru exiles returning to the cavern after their sojourn elsewhere -- which would tie in with what Nalates was doing in the run up to SL Devokan's disappearance.

Their 'journal' in this case would be a thread on the MOUL forum -- and this time I think we would be fully justified in placing it in the Creativity section. I could then (with prior permission) copy the text across to place in a journal in Devokan Keepsafe in Winterfell.

I'd like to encourage a measured, in-depth exploration of the ages, so that people take time to enjoy the details, and not to rush through them all trying to finish them first. It's also great to go exploring in twos or threes, speculating on what you see, picking up ideas from each other that might then lead to further ideas for story development.

Perhaps this chapter could be called 'Devokan: The Journey Continues...', which would tie in with a possible SL build the Devokan team has been asked to develop (with the return of the cavern, though, I'm not sure whether this will still go ahead).

In the meantime, Paislee, Mat, Quin and I are working on the islands in OSgrid. This will give us time to develop them further, ready for the next chapter, say starting in April/May. Good progress was made over the weekend.

Fax is including mentions of some of his exploration of the Cavern and the Ages in his journal in the Winterfell Keepsafe -- the journal is in my office there, together with Nal's.

Fax had an interesting encounter with Quin -- his entry of 17 Feb summarises it nicely.

Spoiler:

2-17-10Age of Myst

Home again for the moment -- managed to re-reach the center of Ahnonay (I can never get over its astounding beauty, much less its sheer deviousness) before the ResEngs chased everyone out to perform some maintenance. Came back here, had a quick lunch and sat to watch the sunrise (odd sentence, I know, but the local day is considerably shorter here), then out again to re-secure the K'veer link and start the pellet ovens going again. And once I finish this I have to leave for work(!).

Ran into Quin while I was here -- poor fellow, he was exhausted from his work on New Devokan, and had only just slowed down enough for the postponed grief of losing the old Devokan to finally hit. I was surprised to learn he didn't know of the D'ni cavern's reopening -- I shouldn't have been, given how busy he's been the last few weeks. And, of course, though he'd worked to some extent with D'ni technology and The Art, he'd only known of the cavern itself secondhand, through Dot and the other exiles. He told me some fascinating things about his late aunt, an "explorer of the old school" (as he put it) who spent years studying Devokan.

In any event, I filled him in on events in the cavern and encouraged him to come visit (and told him of the efforts to draw explorers from the cavern to New Devokan). I think I succeeded in cheering him up, at least a bit. Goodness knows he's earned some cheering up.

Off to work now...

Quin has at last started his journal (talk about procrastination... ); it's on the table in his lab on the ground floor of the Keepsafe building. So far it includes entries explaining what was happening while he was in New Devokan, plus a record of his conversation with Fax, which includes some family background:

When I originally visited with warrior Nalates the source of the glowing orbs, I took careful measurements of the multidimensional aether through which we travelled. By working through the notes I took at the time, analysing samples I collected in the other world, and carefully reading critical entries in my late aunt's journal, I was able to set up a system whereby I could return at will and conduct further investigations and experiments.

Fri 5 Feb 2010I linked back to Devokan to check how things were going with preparations for the final evacuation and to tell the others of my plans: the laboratory I set up in the new world, and some of the equipment I have been able to bring across

My hope is to tap into the growing strength of the sphere above the standing stones that have reappeared in Devokan. It will be a risk -- I don't completely understand the underlying mechanisms -- but given the choice between that and the complete loss of that wonderful island, one worth taking.

So I am going to stay in the new world, monitoring the instruments, trying to control and focus whatever it was that enabled this transport of living and non-living matter, and that was growing strongly by the hour. I shook hands with each of them, wished them luck (as they did me), and returned to the spheres' source world.

Sun 7 Feb 2010Devokan is no more.

As I watched from my temporary lab in the source world of the spheres -- the New Devokan, as warrior Nalates likes to call it -- over the last few hours, one by one the monitors went blank.

First Selenitica's satellite mine, then Selenitica itself, then the Lost Pages sphere, then the beautiful island of Devokan. All gone.

I weep.

Wed 10 Feb 2010Two solid days, sitting there in the laboratory, watching, adjusting a slider here, a knob there; hoping against hope that the conjectures and calculations about the spheres might have some substance to them, that my efforts might not be in vain.

Utterly exhausted, I emerged from the lab this morning, and linked.

The island was transformed! Somehow, the land had been remoulded into the hills and valleys of our lost Devokan. As I watched, rocks, streams, plants seemed to form out of the atmosphere -- a crystalline shimmering in the air, and then the wood, the waterfalls, the sounds, ...

I walked in a daze, looking around me in awe. It all fitted -- the geology, the ecology, all matched. The island has come home.

Spoiler:

Wed 17 Feb 2010, 6:36 amI have been here in the spheres' source world for nearly two weeks now. Most of that time has been spent monitoring the equipment, checking, adjusting.

I am feeling lost, bereft. This place is both Devokan and not-Devokan. Where is my home? Where do I belong?

Perhaps I have been pushing myself too hard. Must link back to Winterfell. Talk to someone. =======

Later that day: Where is everyone? I link back to Keepsafe, and there is no one here! Fortunately, Mr Quixote contacted me soon after I linked in. The ensuing conversation was enlightening.

Fax Quixote: How are you holding up? Are you doing better today?

Quinquifid Oddenfen: Shorah, Fax. Thank you for your concern. I suspect events have caught up with me.

Fax Quixote: They do that.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: It seems so strange, being there in that other world, with the land looking so like the terrain of the Devokan we lost. Unsettling. I did not expect to experience this. Not having worked so hard to try to achieve it (if indeed what I did had anything to do with what happened).

Fax Quixote: It's a sort of survivor's guilt, I suppose.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: I don't know. I really don't know. It got to the point where I couldn't stay there for any longer -- I was there alone. Hence my return -- and why I appreciate you contacting me.

Fax Quixote nods

Quinquifid Oddenfen: I suppose I should write up my notes. I have been very remiss over the last few weeks but there has been so much happening.

Fax Quixote: Understandable. I do think the writing might help.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: A wise observation. Try to make sense of it. And writing can distance oneself, make one an observer rather than a participant.

Fax Quixote: Even so.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: But what of yourself? What of your own explorations?

Fax Quixote: I just returned frtom Ahnonay and had lunch. The cavern was being cleared briefly for some sort of maintenance work -- I may go see if they're done yet soon.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: The cavern? Is that the one Dot talked about? The one that she was exiled from?

Fax Quixote: Probably. The D'ni cavern.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: Yes, it was the D'ni...

Fax Quixote: And that has reopened, yes.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: My goodness! How are Dot and the others? Have you had any contact with them?

Fax Quixote: In fact, the reopening was announced the same weekend as Devokan's ending, so things have been quite hectic for them as well. Emotionally and otherwise.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: Remarkable. Miss Paislee was particularly fond of quoting a saying: The stronger the things we face, the more hope we bring with us to the next beginning. -- Atrus, Myst IV

Fax Quixote: Precisely.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: Devokan -- hope, rebirth, new beginning... but I am so tired... -- But enough of my complaining!

Fax Quixote: I have not directly encountered Dot and Paislee recently, but I have heard indirectly that they have established a Devokan community in the cavern. They hope bring more of the D'ni Explorers to the new Devokan.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: Ah! Perhaps I too should visit this cavern. Once Dot asked me to visit a connected age I believe -- this was when she held some position of office in the Guild of Maintainers.

Fax Quixote: [nods] I'm frankly a bit surprised that you haven't yet. I had somehow assumed that you were among the exiles -- I shouldn't have done.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: No. Although I arrived at Devokan at much the same time as Dot, I come from the same world and time as Miss Paislee albeit from the city rather than the country

Fax Quixote: Ah, I see.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: My aunt Elspeth left me the house on the island of Devokan. There were various clauses in her will that required me to move there. A strong minded woman -- interesting character.

Fax Quixote: She sounds like it. I am sorry not to have met her.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: You will need to talk to Miss Paislee ... she looked after her in her latter time. I didn't know her that well -- I met her only a few times in my childhood. She was an explorer of the old school -- spending years among the communities and cultures she discovered

Fax Quixote: Hence the home in Devokan?

Quinquifid Oddenfen: Yes

Fax Quixote: Ah...

Quinquifid Oddenfen: Yes, the cottage was somewhat neglected...

Fax Quixote: In any event, yes, I would certainly recommend that you visit the cavern.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: Thank you. That might well be therapeutic too. -- Gah, Enough of this self pity! I apologise, sir!

Fax Quixote: No need in the slightest for apology. Hold on a moment, let me get some information that will be helpful to you...

Quinquifid Oddenfen: Thank you.

Fax Quixote: Communication in the cavern, as well as certain other functions, come through a device worn on the back of the hand, something like a wristwatch only a bit larger. It's called a "Ki," and each has a distinct number. If one has the number of a friend's Ki, one can can program it into one's own -- "speed dial," I suppose it would be called where I come from.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: Ah, that is useful. One of the difficulties of the past two weeks has been not being able to communicate

Fax Quixote consults a sheet of paperFax Quixote: I have some of the numbers here -- Dot actually has two, 138156 and 137263.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: Ever the busy executive?!

Fax Quixote: Only one will be in use at any one time, you understand.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: That is something... Life can get pressured

Fax Quixote: I don't see a listing for Miss Paislee in this directory -- a later edition may have it, or Dot may. Nalates' numbers are 83543 and 111451.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: So warrior Nalates is there?

Fax Quixote: Yes.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: My word.

Fax Quixote: Mine is 48489.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: Interesting... both five- and six-digit numbers?

Fax Quixote: There are some as low as four digits, for those who were part of the initial safety checkouts. On the Ki they have leading zeroes. But they can be entered for contact purposes without the leading zeroes. Is there anyone else whose number you would like to know?

Quinquifid Oddenfen: Miss Holli, is she there? She did a good job in observing the spheres -- and her friend -- I think his name was Artair? And of course Miss Nyn -- though she was so busy with her new business I hardly saw her the past few months.

Fax Quixote: This directory is early, and quite incomplete -- I don't see Miss Holli. Artair is on here.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: From what you say, the KIs must have been issued sequentially which suggests you must have been one of the earlier explorers to reach there

Fax Quixote: Yes. There were some difficulties in the early going. I was lucky enough to get in, but others were unable to until later.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: That must have been frustrating -- but in another way, safer

Fax Quixote: Quite.

Quinquifid Oddenfen: Well, this has given me a lot to think about. It might also explain why no one was here when I returned!

Fax Quixote: [smiles] It might well.

The latter presents a tiny problem with time line: Quin's KI number. I think he might have got carried away there! But do we need to worry about that level of detail?

I've started a new IC thread here on GoMa for the current storyline, bringing in Quin's journals and my latest post over on the MOUL thread. I've tried to link to current events here in the guild (apologies if I missed any), to TMP's meeting in the cavern, and to DMom's work with the D'ni Voice.

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